Op-ed: Where Have All the Butches Gone?

In defense of resilient butches or effeminate fairies.

When I was doing more public speaking, I used to do a little experiment. I’d be asked to address gay groups on the problem of gender. As they all looked at me expectantly, I would invite them to discuss their problem with gender.

This inevitably drew a lot of blank looks, especially with all-male groups.

So I would ask them, “How many of you are gay?”

They would all proudly raise their hands, proudly. Then I’d ask, “How many of you are bottoms?”

Everyone’s hand went down, fast. Really fast. So fast, in fact, that all the oxygen was suddenly sucked out of the room and we all had problems breathing.

Then they’d all look at the one self-identified fairy who still had his hand up and laugh. Apparently gay male communities are composed entirely of tops and tough guys. No wonder dating is so difficult!

And then I’d ask them, what was so humiliating, even here in the 21st century, to admit that just once — you were young, drunk, didn’t know what you were doing — just that once you were … a catcher instead of a pitcher?

And it was the gender thing. Being a bottom meant taking the “woman’s role” in bed. No one wanted to admit to that publicly. No one wanted to be recognized as being any way visibly womanly, of being gender-nonconforming. That was stretching gay pride too far.

Where have all the butches gone?

Blah, blah, blah, blither, blither…. Then comes the following sentence.

But that turned out to be largely an artifact of surgery and history. The first tiny waves of trannies who came out as such — from the early, early Christine Jorgenson to the later but still early Jan Morris. And it is simply (and unfortunately) much more practical to do MTF “bottom surgery” than FTM.

Gee Riki I guess you’ve been so buried in Judith Butler’s jargon babble you missed the memo.

“Trannie” has become like the “N-word”, something that doesn’t get tossed into casual conversations and which merits at the very least quote marks to show you are either quoting some one or are using in perhaps an ironic context.

The other accepted usage which you might argue in this case is historical context.

Maybe Riki needs to do some catch up but her relevance has seriously slipped since the days of Read My Lips.